(made proud with the sight) it seemed
a precious comfort to have so many like brothers commanding one
another's fortunes (though it was his own fortune which paid all the
costs), and with joy they would run over at the spectacle of such, as it
appeared to him, truly festive and fraternal meeting.

But while he thus outwent the very heart of kindness, and poured out his
bounty, as if Plutus, the god of gold, had been but his steward; while
thus he proceeded without care or stop, so senseless of expense that he
would neither inquire how he could maintain it, nor cease his wild flow
of riot; his riches, which were not infinite, must needs melt away
before a prodigality which knew no limits. But who should tell him so?
his flatterers? they had an interest in shutting his eyes. In vain did
his honest steward Flavius try to represent to him his condition, laying
his accounts before him, begging of him, praying of him, with an
importunity that on any other occasion would have been unmannerly in a
servant, beseeching him with tears to look into the state of his
affairs. Timon would still put him off, and turn the discourse to
something else; for nothing is so deaf to remonstrance as riches turned
to poverty, nothing is so unwilling to believe its situation, nothing so
incredulous to its own true state, and hard to give credit to a reverse.
Often had this good steward, this honest creature, when all the rooms of
Timon's great house have been choked up with riotous feeders at his
master's cost, when the floors have wept with drunken spilling of wine,
and every apartment has blazed with lights and resounded with music and
feasting, often had he retired by himself to some solitary spot, and
wept faster than the wine ran from the wasteful casks within, to see the
mad bounty of his lord, and to think, when the means were gone which
brought him praises from all sorts of people, how quickly the breath
would be gone of which the praise was made; praises won in feasting
would be lost in fasting, and at one cloud of winter-showers these flies
would disappear.

But now the time was come that Timon could shut his ears no longer to
the representations of this faithful steward. Money must be had; and
when he ordered Flavius to sell some of his land for that purpose,
Flavius informed him, what he had in vain endeavoured at several times
before to make him listen to, that most of his land was already sold or
forfeited, and that all he possess